Lance our choice in the 7th District

The 7th Congressional District has changed - and so, it appears, has Rep. Leonard Lance.

Redistricting has turned the 7th more Republican, with Democratic outposts in Middlesex County replaced mostly by a chunk of more GOP-friendly Morris County. The 7th used to be viewed as a rare competitive region in a state where outlandish gerrymandering typically protects incumbents by securing large demographic advantages. But the district now favors the incumbent Lance more heavily.

Perhaps that helps explain why Lance's Democratic challenger doesn't even come from the district. Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula is launching his bid from Franklin, in Somerset County, which wasn't even in the old 7th, something Lance is quick to note. Chivukula's "outsider" status may trouble a few voters, but it figures to be a minor factor at best.

Of more significance is Lance's apparent shift to the right, which has become a popular theme among his critics and suggests an effort to soften opposition from conservatives and Tea Party insurgents within his own party, while earning a bit more favor with party leadership.

He did, however, turn away a Tea Party challenger, David Larsen, in the primary, and now faces an old-school, tax-and-spend Democrat in Chivukula, presenting voters with a stark choice.

We have long supported Lance, on the state and federal level, in large part for his relatively moderate perspective that indicated a more thoughtful approach than the standard lockstep partisanship we hear from too many candidates. We are sorry to see some of that independence washing away. But we also believe Lance's more moderate roots haven't entirely disappeared and will still surface when it counts. That may be just a hope, but that's still a better option for the district than Chivukula's checklist liberalism.

Chivukula is a long-time state lawmaker in the predominantly Democratic 17th Legislative District, and as a result he seems most comfortable offering up standard party lines and expecting that to be enough. His views on tax cuts, promoting job growth, government spending and a host of other issues have all fallen predictably into the usual Democratic slots in this campaign, but while they may play well in Middlesex County, they won't resonate the same way in the 7th District.

An immigrant proud of his success in this country and proud to serve the public, Chivukula seems as if he would proudly and quietly serve as a reliable Democratic vote in Congress. That's fine for party diehards. But Congress needs more than that, on both sides of the aisle.

Lance has gone in some troubling directions. Despite being pro-choice, he jumped on board the attack on Planned Parenthood funding because of the money that's directed toward abortions. He reversed his earlier support for the cap-and-trade plan that was designed to confront global warming. He wants to repeal Obamacare, but with only the broadest sense of how to try to replace it successfully. And he has some overly harsh budget views fueled by his long-standing emphasis on debt reduction.

At his best, though, Lance is reasoned and layered in his thinking, and while Democrats are trying to portray him as little more than a Tea Party wingnut, he's still no extremist. If voters must accept him as more conservative than moderate these days, he at least doesn't figure to be the kind of dogmatic conservative who can be so dangerous on Capitol Hill.

Lance receives our endorsement.

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Lance our choice in the 7th District

The 7th Congressional District has changed ? and so, it appears, has Rep. Leonard Lance. Redistricting has turned the 7th more Republican, with Democratic outposts in Middlesex County replaced mostly

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